My review of the film Flora Foster Jenkins originally appeared in Canada's National Post newspaper.

Much like a car accident that people can’t look away from, there’s something irresistibly fascinating about the human failing of self-delusion.

Miguel de Cervantes knew he was on to something, back in 1605, when he invented Don Quixote, the self-styled knight whose vivid imagination completely usurped reality. More recently, the 1994 biopic Ed Wood focused on the famously inept filmmaker.

The last of the Toronto Summer Music concerts I attended was called “Hanover Square in 1801” – a reference to London’s Hanover Square Rooms, where leading European musicians appeared before fashionable audiences. And like the well-attended events that the impresario Johann Peter Salomon presented at the Hanover Square Rooms, this concert filled Walter Hall on Friday (August 6) evening almost to capacity.

The mix-and-match chamber program included a flute trio by Haydn (No. 1 in C major, Hob. IV: 1); a transcription of Haydn’s symphony No. 102 for seven musicians; and, finally, Beethoven’s Septet in E Flat Major. It was, in short, the kind of concert where “a good time was had by all” – refined, sophisticated and entirely proper. (We can overlook a confused hornist, who momentarily lost track of which movement in the Beethoven Septet was to be played next.)

If I had the opportunity to be teleported back to London in the year 1845, what would I do? I’d certainly attend concerts by the Philharmonic Society, oratorios sung by the Sacred Harmonic Society, and perhaps a piano recital by Ignaz Moscheles. Also, I’d welcome the opportunity to take in Antigone (a play with incidental music Mendelssohn) on stage at Covent Garden.

But would I attend a concert by the Beethoven Quartet Society? I’m not so sure. As much as I love Beethoven, I’m wary of musical events that offer too much of a good thing.

Eatock Daily

I'm a composer and writer based in Toronto – and this is my classical music blog, Eatock Daily.

Here you'll find musings and meditations, some reviews and the occasional rant – as well as some of the articlesI've written for Toronto’s National Post and Globe and Mailnewspapers, the Houston Chronicle, the Kansas City Star and other publications.